Unofficial news and tips about Google

June 14, 2012

YouTube Tests a New Homepage Interface

YouTube experiments with a new design of the homepage. The left sidebar now lists all your subscriptions and you can see the number of recent videos from each subscription. There's also a search box that lets you find a subscription. The sidebar no longer includes popular YouTube categories and the suggested channels are displayed below your subscriptions in the scrolling list.

Another change is that the videos from your feed take up a lot more space because the thumbnails are bigger. The new interface lets you hide videos from the feed, a feature that used to be available in the previous YouTube UIs. YouTube also shows a small "watched" label over the thumbnail after playing a video.

Here's the experimental UI:

... and the existing homepage:

Here's how you can try the latest Google experiment. If you use Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari or Internet Explorer 8+, open youtube.com in a new tab, load:

that's what she said. but in all seriousness, i agree. i think half the people here are google employees to say that that trashy homepage is good! it's less convenient and looks like they didn't even try!

I hate the fact thet they removed the "x" button near each video in your subscription list... Now it's so hard to keep track on what videos I've viewed... I hoped they'd re-add it in the next ui redesign, but here goes nothing...

What they need to do to the new design is make the left side panel a bit darker, maybe a dark grey, and then make the thumb nails smaller, because I dont need thumbs that big, they could put the video description in the now made available space... Oh wait.. Thats returned the design back to the original.. Might as well not change it!

it's definitely shit alright.. i prefer if they just allowed individual users to choose what type of interface/design they want to have. customize your own shit. dont standardize it to one set appearance. that sux.

I like that they got rid of the overly black design. It doesn't look good on the desktop although I like the dark theme on mobile. I don't like the header in this version. Actually the header hasn't really changed (other than disabling the Google+ share buttons). I'd like to see a nice grey bar here like across the other Google properties. As for the lack of information density, I like the more simple view. I usually judge a video by the thumbnail before I do by the title or other information. I'd say the best option here is to add an expand button like in Google+ posts. Also, I wouldn't mind the thumbnail being even a little larger, and maybe even enabling the left aligned style that Google+ now has. Maybe we are slowly moving in that direction. The white space problem here could be easily remedied with large thumbnails that increase with the window size. Actually the stream size in the new YouTube layout is still 100 or so pixels thinner than the Google+ stream. Also adding the chat bar on the left with option to start a hangout from a YouTube video page allowing you to share a video with friends instantly would be awesome.

If anything, I wish YouTube would give back the option to hide recommendations in a future update, as almost 90% of the time the recommended videos based on what I watch don't suit my tastes...and if possible, there should be an algorithm fix for that when I watch different videos (that aren't related to each other) that after a time they wouldn't show up in each other's "similar videos" list.

1. The﻿ feed should default to "uploads only" and "everything" as I believe this is what the vast majority of users want to see.

2. A drop-down menu for highlights/everything is stupid. Dropdowns are for >2 choices. Should be radio buttons or a tick-box. Users are missing stuff cuz they don't know it's defaulting to "highlights".

3. The manage subscriptions interface (accessed from bottom left) is buggy. I have ended up with hundreds of pinned subscriptions and can't unpin them.

Hate the fact that they cut of the titles of videos with long titles, only made worse by the fact that the full title is NOT shown on mouseover and by the way is shown on mouseover in the recommendations.

Agreed with Nick Hope.I like that the subscribed videos' thumbnails are bigger than the recommendations, and that the time clock is back, and that you can see what has been watched and what hasn't been watched. Subscribers want to see and organize the videos of channels they subscribed too! Those are more important than recommendation videos.The lack of information density is, in my opinion, a great thing and the best thing about this new homepage. The current is too cluttered and busy. Please keep the scroll in the left subscription bar. I like that.

The functionality of this design is better, but it looks really boring in my opinion. And why would the thumbnails need to be THAT large? Now you can barely see three videos in your subscriptions at a time without having to scroll. I love that the x button is back and that you can scroll through all the channels you are subscribed to and see how many videos you've missed. That is the best feature in this new design. Oh, and that it clearly shows you which videos you've watched.

So I think I screwed up my youtube. I noticed that the new design was out but it didn't look totally like the new design on this page so I thought maybe they are implementing it in sections. So I went and tried to do what this said (the first line of code) and I ended up reverting to the old one and it wont go back by putting either line of code or clearing out my history including cookies or exiting the browser and then going back on. Any help?

STOP WITH THE FUCKING CHANGES MY GOD!!! i'm sick and tired of these stupid home pages. hell i'm thinking of never using youtube ever again. its... its... JUST STOP! WE DONT NEED ANY MORE CHANGES! HEY i got a good idea how about we fix the view count so it doesn't get stuck at 300. just keep it how it is and stop changing the damn homepage.

Wow, you are not very informed. View count being stuck at 300 is not a bug. In fact its a mechanism YouTube uses to ensure the views are legit. After 300 views, the further the counter goes the longer it takes them to verify the views. Changes while not very nice all the time, are necessary.

Don't have to be too anger. Nor over reactive. Change is necessary, while I was a bit surprised to wake up and find YouTube to look different. I kind of like it, I liked the old UI just the same though. This new UI is still in beta, so it should be improved upon and be bug fixed over the next few months. Participate, and send Google feedback for once. Give them your opinion in an intelligent way and they might answer your opinion in some way shape or form. The way you type is like the way I typed when I was 13 grow up a little bit. Don't rage over change, change is what makes the world go around. In technology and in everything else.

Please please please put in the thumb ratings on the video thumbnail! It will cut out all of these stupid videos I click on. That way I can see before I click on a video whether other people liked it or not.

I actually like this new "Google+"-ified user interface. My favorites are the x button on uploaded videos on your subscription box that you don't want to see, and the number of recent videos on each subscription which is a much easier way to check on how many videos I've missed already from the channels I've subscribed.

It's just a shame that this UI is still experimental because I really want this UI for good and not have to go to this site all the time whenever I log in to youtube just to use this new homepage.

I've actually had this design for a couple of weeks now. I figured it was something wrong with my laptop, and it had just decided not to load the whole page any more. I think that describes my feelings for the new look, it just doesn't looked finished on my screen, there is no defined end to anything and it just leaves the eye looking for more.

I really like this homepage compared to the old one, the fact the thumbnails are bigger is good though I do agree that when you scroll your mouse over them the full title of the video should come up and also some/all of the description.I really like the fact that it tells you when you have watched a video already as it's easier to scroll through to find the ones you want to watch.I still think that it should be default as "Uploads only" and "Everything" because I don't think many people if any would prefer to have it on highlights, most are probably unaware that an option for everything exists.I do quite like the side bar that scrolls with my subscriptions but the fact it tells me how many I have missed could be better. In many cases it tells me I have missed a video when I know I haven't it also marks the older videos as unwatched when I click on the channel. If it could perhaps be possible to change this so that it is videos you have missed since the last video of theirs you watched. I agree that the white sucks. Either the colour scheme needs to be changed or we should have the option to choose our own colour scheme.

It dosn't really seem to do anything majour to fix the issues that I have personally with the current homepage. I mean, I agree with a few people above me that too much white is definatly a bad thing, also makes it difficult to see with my dodgy laptop screen and thus will cause me to have serious eye-strain which isn't good. And those thumbnails are definatly a little too big. But, all that would pale into insignificance if you very simply made it so that irritating highlights feature wasn't the default. I mean it works fine for people who arn't very active with youtube and only watch the occasional video but for more active youtubers it's a nightmare. Also the people your subscribed to should definatly be easier to access and I really don't thing the pin subscriptions thing is a good idea beacuse it makes it harder for me to have easy access to people's channels beacuse I have to go to see all then wait for the page to load and then scroll through the list to find that person's channel when ideally I'd like it if they were easily accessible from the homepage itself. Also it would be nice if when you hovered over a vid with a long title it showed you the entire title like it does with the recommendations. After all your subscriptions are stuff you want to watch, while I can't see myself ever being interested in the recommendations when most of it tends to be porn for some wired reason. And it would be nice if you could choose the colpour scheme for your homepage. That would be epic.

I actually really liked the last redesign. The colour profile was really aesthetically pleasing and the only issue I had was the limited amount of channels I could pin to the sidebar, meaning I ended up ignoring the content produced by a lot of the more inactive channels I was subscribing to but this new layout fucking sucks.

In the highlights and subscriptions column in the middle, I'm getting a ton of my own uploads, likes and favourites mixed in with other people's uploads and it's completely unusable. As in I'm getting my own content recommended to me? Wtf? And why are the thumbnails so large? On the right side bar, I'm getting recommended channels and topics instead of the usual recommended videos and this is terrible. I don't want to see a link to a topic about Vladimir Putin or Cats or some shit channel on my homepage sidebar all the fucking time.

I also rather liked the 'trending' and 'popular' functionality from the last UI, but it's nowhere to be seen now. And if I have to look at a category (say Gaming), I now have to go to 'Browse' first and see the fucking huge and messy unusable page?

The x (hide) feature is back! Other than that; even more space is wasted and half of my subscriptions are still not on the list and I have to reapply this silly cookie fix every day... But I don't care, this is still a very, very awesome change because I can delete items with the x button again!

Really?A new change after 2 months?Why they don`t change everything at once and leave it like this?I just got used to the new homepage what`s wrong with it?The bastards from Google got bored again someone stop them.

Zachary Gried they can't change it at once because it's a network always online... imagine if it goes down for a few days, the people that leave of the money of their videos would just lose rely much money.-it doesn´t work for me since yersterday.

Funny how every single new design sucks in one way or another. Always seem to take steps Backwards. This applies to both Youtube and Facebook. It pisses me off.

Why does the new Youtube design sucks? (this and the old "new")1. It removes comments and discussions on the channel pages, turning them more into 1-way "tv-channels" with NO interaction what so ever between the subscribers and the channel host.2. It has huge thumbnails, letting you see fewer videos per screen.

And now this even newer update, has even BIGGER thumbnails. Are you kidding me? I'll be able to see THREE videos per full-screen. Amazing.You do know there's like 10-15 new videos every day from my subbox, right? You expect me to go through the hassle of manually clicking on every single subscribed channel in the list just to filter it down so i can manage to view them all?

Why? I don't get it. Why ruin designs like this, time and time again? You remove usability, you do NOT make a design more easy to use if you REMOVE information from the user. It doesn't work like that.I want to bloody see my videos in the subbox. I want to see them. Okay?I don't want to see only 2-3 videos for every full screen i have to scroll through. Jesus christ..

What's next? Auto-playing the latest video in your sub-box in fullscreen, not letting you scroll down to the next one until it's viewed?At this rate, it isn't impossible. lol.

I'm annoyed. I quite liked the new design until a few days ago when they started mixing recommendations and subscriptions on the default homepage screen, adding another click to get to the subscriptions only screen. Once you're there, you can't select to view uploads only. The whole thing is a mess now.

I don't like it, the worst part is that it switched without me doing anything, but it only loads on chrome. Firefox still shows the current page. Chrome has also stopped playing all audio. Damnit google.

IMO: New YouTube interface is a loser. After several months experience we have completed our evaluation: The new YouTube interface is unattractive, hard on the eyes, messy, busy, annoying. A graphic design nightmare that drives us away from the site. Leaves us desperately seeking any alternative. Maybe it's time to get those 3rd party developers going and reformat the interface. Aside: Google is just plane bad about graphic design. Always has been.

I don't understand why they keep updating it to be more like a mobile site. Don't they have a youtube app? The mobile format should be separate from desktop format and why not have a mobile site that people get redirected to when they go to youtube on their phones? I hate the mobile interface, it's so squished and cluttered. The browse section is such a mess as well. I rather see rows and columns in most watched, not a straight column, that's annoying.

I can't believe you can't JUST see your uploads. It's annoying and intrusive and messy. I don't want to see recommendations or subscription activity in my news feed. If I did, I'd SELECT that option. I HATE that they are trying to make Youtube look like a Facebook news feed. Huge downgrade.

Doesn't work for me, too. (Win7, Chrome 22) Few hours ago at Youtube I clicked on link "View Youtube in English" (But it was in English already), and... "Hello old design"... Since then this manual don't work

Yeah the new interface is a real shit, is only made for filter all the users to pass into the same contents, THERES IS NO OPTIONS NOW in the website for see the users works, it only shows the partners videos, Where is the channels ranking, and the channel awards that motivate some users to continue working free, i dont want hate Google for that, but since they come the things are not good at all, and is so easy put more options in youtube for see all the world channels rankings of countrys and other things, its stupid that youtube offer less options than in the past, thats not a evolution really, and HD videos are not important, they wasted a lot of bandwitch that requires a lot of companys working in the database centers, for HD videos of stupid things that is the 40% of youtube videos, i think the HD option for the public has to be Premium, and you can have free your HD video private, thats will reduce the costs of maintenance of youtube and let more space to publicity the community channels, and the people will not waste the bandwitch that are heating the planet every day. I joke at the people that are all the day seeings Documentarys of Science or be a green man of clean energys, and they are wasting bandwitch of internet everytime in stupid things, thats a crap.

I really still wait that Google take youtube the place that it grants, and do something NOW i Think Google is so big, for cant update youtube in a week, thats stupid i think, that they are waiting to compare stadistics of the money the win with this version and the others version of youtube in the past, but in the end i think they need to improve YOUTUBE NOW AND LET MORE OPTIONS.

i second that dude. google has lost the plot with their "less options, and dumber options" scheme. wtf is happening in their quarters? have they been hijacked by some stupid alien race hell-bent on dumbing us all down? i can only surmise.

Even if you manage to get this to work, as soon as you log in again, it gives you the new layout. Is there any word from Google about them reverting back? From what I've seen, majority of people aren't happy with this layout at all.

i do not even understand how to use the console to enter the text, what exactly are you supposed to do?Well I entered it in the bottom line and pressed enter but the screen stayed just the same.Any ideas what I am doing wrong?

The new setup is far less convenient then the older format. Not only does it jumble up the subscriptions which I can no longer choose to show my top favorites but instead have to scroll through in non alphabetical order that randomizes every time...I cannot see any information about what is in my inbox without going to settings and going to the inbox tab which is a pointless waste of time just to check for notifications. The channel/video recommendations have gotten worse with completely blank channels being recommended to me just because they had similar names to channels I watch and videos I have already seen many times over being recommended because I watched or liked or faved a similar video. You also cannot quickly add videos to a watch later playlist instead it is added to a list of separate videos that do not auto play so if you want a quick playlist made you have to go into each video separately just to click add to and add them to a custom playlist. No convenient tab in tab out scrolling lists of videos which you can re arrange at whim (though it needed a bit of work) instead only playlists which sometimes have the list of videos pop up for you to choose will have this occur inside the video screen overlay. No more choice to choose uploads only on your main subscription tab and feed is always default on every separate sub tab...

I could go on but I will stop here. All I have to say is this new setup wants to go for a minimalist approach which is all fine and good until you realize your making things more difficult for the users. I would also appreciate it if you would not randomly opt in accounts to be forced to try your new format while their friends get to enjoy the old format without being infuriated that you have no option to go back because you do not like it and find it painful to bother using youtube.

USELESS ABSOLUTELY USELESS I can't get any of my subscriptions i just get a White page...i don't even know how to find the message inbox notification, and lately I just hit the refresh button until the old format comes up, or just say fuck it and go to bed early...there are more important things to do with my life than sitting around in front of a fucking tv screen all day bitching about another fuckup.

I hope they allow you you to customise you homepage to the old design...There are other sites like You Ku and ToDu that have figured out lots of things that google can't manage.

the subscribers names are so teeny now, i can hardly read the goddamn things, and when you click on them you get a blank screen...So I don't know what I have missed in the past 2 days...also a blasting white screen like an interrogation light in your face the whole damn time you are trying to navigate it.

Oh well, I just found this post by accident, I am going to read some blogs and call it quite early again.

I'll take the new interface, provided I get to customize layout. My videos used to be semi-centered. Now, they're to the far-left of my screen. I have the side menu, and a whole lot of white space after it to my right. Even Facebook scaled up better than that.

I'll be honest, the current format of it all being white and clear, i do not like it. I don't know if this is the new or old way, but i simply don't like it. For me the one with the darker bars and features before Thanksgiving were much better. I'm mainly on color, but i also think that taking popular videos off of the page is dumb because it holes the viewers up to their own area if they are prone to not often look up things, like me.~Kit

youtube is practically unusable now :| instead of recommended videos i get recommended channels, who would want that.. and youtube recommendations are right in the center of my timeline along with the subscribed vids..

honestly what are they trying to do?

youtube experience is ruined.. i see myself seeing lesser and lesser videos now.. what kind of marketing strategy is this? :|

Reuters: Three top executives including the CEO at Google HQ were dismissed today when it came to light that a recent decision to remove the ability to randomly search for video content on the once popular video website Youtube was in fact an act of sabotage designed to increase the popularity of competitor website LiveLeak.

Evidence came to light that two key Google executives have a substantial share holding in the rapidly growing competitor video content website LiveLeak.

The removal of the 'browse' facility from Youtube was a "not so subtle Trojan horse so-called upgrade" to the website that has been met with almost unanimous criticism and some outrage from Youtube users since its inception.

Also, and seen by many as a shock move, the board elected to dismiss the Google CEO for what a board spokesperson described as "such an obviously insanely bad change to our product and for failing to carry out due diligence on the executives that tabled such an ill-conceived proposal".

Neither the sacked CEO or two (former) executives could be reach for comment.